Laura Haraldson usually likes to keep the smudged ash cross she receives at Ash Wednesday Mass on her forehead all day as a sign. This year, as a safety precaution during the COVID-19 pandemic, she and other worshippers at St. John the Evangelist in Little Canada were given ashes on top of their heads instead.

It was different, but it didn’t take away from the meaning, she said.

“We all change during Lent, either for the better or for the worse, so I think if we start with a little change like this, that’s a good way to set out for the better,” Haraldson said.

St. John the Evangelist was one of several parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis that opted to distribute ashes by sprinkling them on the heads of the faithful. It was one of several ash distribution suggestions offered during the pandemic by the archdiocese in lieu of common practice, with the priest or other ministers touching ash recipients’ foreheads. Instead, they were encouraged to apply the ashes with a cotton swab or trace a cross with their thumb on each recipient’s forehead, sanitizing their hands each time.

Father Tom Balluff, St. John the Evangelist’s pastor, said he chose to sprinkle ashes at the parish’s three Ash Wednesday liturgies because he thought using a swab seemed artificial. He also noted that sprinkling is a regular practice at the Vatican, and Italy and other European countries.

“Although I prefer personally making the sign of the cross in ashes on the forehead, I don’t think it’s a big stretch to sprinkle the ashes on the head,” he said. “I think it’s a symbolic and wonderful penitential mortification.”

Father Balluff said he hasn’t heard complaints from any of the parish’s roughly 5,000 parishioners. The parish plans to offer ashes to people in vehicles outside the church after its 6 p.m. Mass, which will be livestreamed.

Laura’s husband, Scott, said receiving ashes on the head was physically different but not really a big change. The couple and their four children attended the 6:30 a.m. Ash Wednesday Mass.

“I was in the moment with God,” he said. “I was here present. I was totally fine with it.”

Explaining the change to their children wasn’t hard, Scott said. “We’ve been coming to Mass” during the pandemic, he said. “We’ve been through this the better part of a year now, so I think they totally understood the reasoning behind it.”

Having ashes on the top of their heads instead of their foreheads didn’t make the family feel less at risk of contracting COVID-19, but they recognize it’s important for other Catholics, Scott said.

“The last thing I would like to have is anybody having an issue with being able to go to church and not feeling comfortable being in the church,” he said.

Ella Haraldson, 11, said she liked the ash sprinkling. “It’s nicer than having it on my forehead all day,” said Haraldson, who, with her two sisters, attends St. John the Evangelist School.

But, she added, “When you feel it (on your forehead) it makes you remember God more.”

Dale Oden said he was a little disappointed he didn’t have the witness of ashes on his forehead, but he understands that sprinkling ashes is customary in other countries.

Along with Father Balluff, Oden distributed ashes at the 6:30 a.m. Mass to about 40 attendees. No one he gave ashes to seemed concerned about COVID-19 risks, he said. Regarding the sprinkling, “I was a little judicious,” he said. “I should have been a little more generous, I think, in some of the ashes I sprinkled.”

Receiving ashes is a reminder of our mortality, said Oden, a St. John the Evangelist parishioner for 15 years. “(We) don’t get out of this world without facing death. It’s just a reminder. The cross on their forehead is that promise of the Resurrection.”

The parish most likely will return to applying ashes on the forehead when the pandemic ends, Father Balluff said.

“It’s something that we have to adapt to and be flexible with, but at the same time I do believe we will go back to normal,” he said. “There will be a sense of normalcy in the next few months.”